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Vox and Friends

Flickr/Gage Skidmore Representative Paul Ryan A few days ago, Paul Ryan got caught repeating a little fib in his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. It was of a not-uncommon type, in which a vivid anecdote somebody hears from somewhere gets told and retold in a game of political telephone in which the facts get mangled and the story from elsewhere becomes something the speaker claims happened to her. We can forgive Ryan for repeating it, since the falsehood didn't originate with him. But the real power of the story lies in its revelation of the cruelty that underlies the way contemporary American conservatives look at the poor, and the wispy veil they try to pull over that cruelty in the hopes we won't see it for what it is. To start, here's the story Ryan told, about Eloise Anderson, who directs the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families: She once met a young boy from a very poor family, and every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government...

Earlier this week, I sat down with Abby Rapoport and special guest and freelance writer Rowan Kaiser, to discuss the new Sim City. As total wonks, we'd all be fans of the original versions, which require players to build cities and make sure they run properly and efficiently. Will the new game spawn a generation of responsible city planners? Listen below. Podcast Powered By Podbean Further Reading: I wrote about The Sims , an offshoot brand by the same original developer, ages ago in a piece called Moral Combat . Abby wrote about how sims can't change social classes here . Rowan will be writing about the new game for the Prospect next week, so stay tuned!

(AP Photo/Mary Schwalm) The former Massachusetts governor speaks to delegates at the New Hampshire Republican Convention in Concord, N.H Saturday. Mitt Romney is the gift that keeps on giving to Democrats. The ancient Greeks had word for it—a phrase, actually: Character is Fate. In one misstep after another, Mitt keeps revealing his true character. What we’re learning about him is that he is another rich guy who is disdainful of ordinary people; that he can’t speak off the cuff without blundering; and that he is clueless when it comes to foreign policy—not to mention ordinary diplomacy. A lovely pattern has set in. Mitt says something truly dumb and alienating to ordinary Americans. The campaign goes into panic mode, and can’t decide whether to walk it back or double down. Meanwhile, some militant conservatives insist that their clueless candidate had it exactly right, as Bill O’Reilly tried to do on Fox News last night. Romney was statistically correct, O’Reilly insisted. 47 percent...

In this week’s episode of Vox and Friends , The American Prospect podcast, Patrick Caldwell , Jaime Fuller , and myself discuss President Obama’s speech on the economy — and his attempt to channel Theodore Roosevelt — as well as Occupy Wall Street’s success in influencing the political conversation and Newt Gingrich’s odd place in the Republican presidential field...

This week on our weekly podcast: Adam Serwer , Monica Potts , and Pema Levy talk about the evolving protests in Egypt, and the right-wing smear campaign against Planned Parenthood. Listen Now: To download the mp3 directly, click here . Also, if you just want the RSS feed, it's here . We're on iTunes! Click "subscribe" to the right to get TAP's Take automatically delivered to your iTunes library every week.

This week on our weekly podcast: Adam Serwer , Monica Potts , and Jamelle Bouie talk about Congress' attempt to redefine "rape," and the tumult in Egypt. Listen Now: To download the mp3 directly, click here . Also, if you just want the RSS feed, it's here . We're on iTunes! Click "subscribe" to the right to get TAP's Take automatically delivered to your iTunes library every week.